There was a time when Apple was working hard on developing a travel app for iPhones and we covered three of their patent applications that were published by the US Patent & Trademark Office in 2010 (one and two) and 2012. In 2013 Apple was granted their first patent for a travel app and a second granted patent in 2015 that we didn't cover.

Today, although Apple doesn't describe patent application 20180300357 as a continuation patent, it in fact is of their 2015 granted patent. Today Apple lists a new round of patent claims which introduces us to a new angle, a new approach being applied to a future travel app.

Continuation patents always boil down to what has changed or what has been added to its original patent filing. In today's case, Apple's patent claims show that all claims prior claims have been cancelled.

A Few of the Key new Patent Claims

Patent Claim 23 (1-22 cancelled) states: A non-transitory machine readable medium storing instructions executable by a mobile device to perform operations comprising: identifying, by the mobile device, a travel destination based on information stored by a first application on the mobile device; communicating the travel destination to a second application on the mobile device, wherein the second application is adapted to retrieve information associated with an identified geographic location; identifying a time of travel to the travel destination based on the information stored by the first application; and providing, through the second application, information associated with the travel destination, the information associated with the travel destination provided based on the time of travel to the travel destination and a triggering threshold.

Patent Claim #24: The non-transitory machine readable medium as in claim 23, wherein the second application is adapted to automatically retrieve information for the travel destination without user input to the mobile device, the information for the travel destination retrieved based on the identified geographic location associated with the travel destination.

Patent Claim #40: The data processing system as in claim as in claim 34, wherein the travel destination is a first travel destination, the time of travel to the first travel destination is a first time of travel, and the operations further comprise: identifying a second travel destination based on information stored by the first application on the mobile device; identifying a second time of travel to the second travel destination based the information stored by the first application; providing, by the mobile device, information associated with the second travel destination; and providing, by the mobile device, updated information associated with the second travel destination.

To review all of the new patent claims, click here. It would appear that Apple is still working on a new travel app, even if it's being done glacially.  

Below is a Scribd document that contains all of the patent figures associated with this invention.

Apple Travel App Patent Figures Oct 18, 2018 Patent '357 by Jack Purcher on Scribd

Patently Apple presents a detailed summary of patent applications and/or granted patents with associated graphics for journalistic news purposes as each such patent application is revealed by the U.S. Patent & Trade Office. Readers are cautioned that the full text of any patent application should be read in its entirety for full and accurate details.